A study of Dōgen: his philosophy and religion by Masao Abe

"This booklet is set the vital rules of crucial Buddhist spokesman in eastern historical past and is written through probably the most revered and authoritative of his interpreters. It displays a life of a professional and concerted pondering Dogen." -- Francis H. cook dinner, college of California, Riverside

"It is a very amazing contribution to Dogen scholarship in addition to East-West comparative philosophy via the most distinctive glossy eastern thinkers of our time. This makes for a strong and actually illuminating volume." -- Steve Odin, collage of Hawaii

This whole translation of Masao Abe's essays on Dogen probes the middle of the Zen master's philosophy and faith. This paintings analyzes Dogen's formative doubt about the thought of unique awakening because the foundation for his special approach to nonduality within the doctrines of the oneness of perform and attainment, the team spirit of beings and Buddha-nature, the simultaneity of time and eternity, and the id of lifestyles and dying. Abe additionally bargains insightful, serious comparisons of Dogen and numerous Buddhist and Western thinkers, specially Shinran and Heidegger.

"This is a crystal-clear dealing with of super tricky subject material. The analyses are sophisticated and whilst lucid. the writer has a profound and terrific knowing of Dogen and Shinran and can be well-grounded in Western philosophy and religion." -- Joan Stambaugh, Hunter university

This publication investigates either the philosophical and spiritual dimensions of Buddhism. It explores the function of meditation and non secular technique within the quite a few colleges of Buddhism and gives a severe, philosophical research of ways liberation is conceived through very important Buddhist thinkers. it's consequently priceless not just for Buddhist students, but in addition for college kids enrolled in classes in Buddhist philosophy and faith.

Clever and witty, heartfelt and profound, this moment quantity in an annual sequence brings jointly the year's such a lot amazing prose and verse encouraged through the ability and perception of Buddhist perform. Compiled via the editors of Shambhala solar , North America's oldest and most generally learn Buddhist journal, the gathering deals a full of life array of types, views, and matters of latest Buddhists.

The Tibetan historian Tarantha complied those bills of fifty nine siddhas or adepts who have been instrumental within the transmission of 7 oral Tantric traditions. this can be a resource e-book a lot quoted via later historians.

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These two themes are inseparable. " Since dramatically speaking, this way of reading is unnatural and might even be termed wrong, why does Dogen read it in this manner? It is because this is the only way for Dogen to express clearly what he believes to he the fundamental standpoint of 5 Mahayana Buddhism. It is more important for him to rightly and correctly convey the Buddhist truth than to be grammatically correct. " Why did Dogen believe that this unusual way of reading more appropriately expresses the Buddhist truth?

In Dogen, the Buddha-nature, the ultimate Reality, is realized precisely in this infinite and ontological dimension in which all beings can exist respectively as they are. " However, despite real similarities between them, Dogen's idea of the Buddha-nature is radically different from Spinoza's idea of God, precisely because Dogen's Budda-nature is not a substance. In the "Bussho" fascicle Dogen says, "What is the essence of the World Honored One's [Sakyamuni's] words, 'All sentient beings without exception have the Buddha-nature'?

Doubts will understandably arise as to which utterance is correct. However, in the Buddha Way, "all sentient beings have no Buddha-nature" is alone preeminent. 18 In Dogen the idea of "no Buddha-nature" is not understood as peculiar to Ta-Kuei alone: Thus the utterance "no-Buddha-nature" is something that reverberates far beyond the patriarchal chambers of the Fourth Patriarch. It was seen and heard in Huang-mei, circulated freely in Chao-chou, and was exalted in Ta-kuei. " 19 Those who remember Dogen's emphasis that "whole-being is the Buddha-nature" may be surprised by these words.